


Misinformed

by mewrose



Series: Misguided!PT AU [3]
Category: Persona 5
Genre: Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Corrupted!Morgana AU, MisguidedPT!AU, Role Reversal, does this count as unreliable narrator?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-19 01:07:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29866824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mewrose/pseuds/mewrose
Summary: The fledgling phantom thieves had finally made their way through their first Palace. And now it was time for Morgana to show them how to change Kamoshida's heart. By killing his Shadow.
Series: Misguided!PT AU [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2191665
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18





	Misinformed

It’d been a rocky start, teaching these fledgeling Persona-users the basics of being phantom thieves. But finally, they got the hang of things and worked their way through the castle. Now they were standing in front of a towering set of gaudy double doors.

“This is it,” Mona told them. “I can sense that the center of the castle is just beyond those doors, the Ruler’s Seat of Power. Once we get in there, we’ll be ready to change his heart.” The thieves were understandably excited about this, and Skull was ready to bust through the doors immediately.

Of course going in through the front door was foolish, and not at all the phantom thief way. They managed to climb a nearby statue, pass through an open window frame and ended up in a balcony overlooking the room.

As they looked around the cavernous chamber, Skull burst out, “What? The place is empty?” 

“Keep your voice down!” Panther hissed at him.

Skull did lower his voice, but not much much. “But Mona said we have to face the Ruler’s Shadow to change his heart, right? How are we supposed to do that if he ain’t here?”

Mona hopped up on a railing so he could address the thieves from closer to their height. “OK, listen up. The first step is to secure the infiltration route, which we’ve done,” he told them. “Now that we know we can get to the Seat of Power,” he pointed to the literal throne in the room below, “we can arrange to make sure the Ruler will be here, staying in one place where we can find him easily.”

Panther looked confused and asked, “But how do we do that? We’ve run into him a couple times before, but he always runs away before any fighting starts.”

Mona braced his little paws on his hips and announced, “By sending a calling card! We’ll tell him we’re coming to steal his distorted desires, which will scare him into realizing we can take this all away from him. And once that happens, he’ll want to be where he feels most secure, so he’ll move to his Seat of Power and stay there.” 

Skull grinned and said, “Oh, I get it! Like a kid getting scared of a bully and running home, yeah?”

Mona did not look impressed by the comparison, and answered, “Well, that’s simplifying it a bit, but more or less.”

Panther was looking around the room, and after a moment she asked, “But if he’s scared like that, won’t he be really on guard?”

Nodding, Mona replied, “You’re right, he’s sure to surround himself with extra defenses. We may have to fight our way through his guards before we can get to him. But this is the only way we can be sure he’ll stay in one place long enough to defeat him.” He crossed his arms and added, “He’ll only be on guard for about 24 hours though, so we’ll have to send the calling card right before we come to face him. After that, he’ll assume it was a false alarm and move away again.”

“So what happens once we beat him?” Skull wanted to know. “How’re we supposed to steal his desires or whatever?”

“Well, as I said before, a Shadow is the darker side of a person, all their twisted desires taken form.” Everyone nodded at that, having seen that Kamoshida’s Shadow embodied all of his desires to dominate and abuse students, secure in the belief that he had every right to do so and nobody could stop him. Mona continued, “So to get rid of those desires, we just have to eliminate the Shadow!”

There was a pause while the teens parsed that, then Skull asked, “You mean, we have to kill it?”

Mona immediately justified, “It’s not a real person to begin with, so it’s not really killing.”

Panther slowly asked, “But...you said it’s a part of him, right?”

“The bad part,” Mona insisted. “All the aspects of him that he’d reject if he was aware they existed.”

Joker had been silent through the whole explanation, and finally he spoke up. “You’re sure killing the Shadow won’t hurt the real person in any way?”

Mona nodded firmly. “I’m positive! With the twisted desires gone, he’ll realize what he did was wrong and have a change of heart. He won’t bother anybody any more.”

The teens looked at each other for a long moment, before Joker asked, “What do you two think? He’s hurt both of you pretty badly, it should be your decision.”

“You’re talking like he never hurt you, what with leaking your record and all,” Skull answered.

Joker shook his head and deflected, “He only hurt my reputation. He hurt you two far more. So what do you think?”

Skull tapped his foot a bit, using the leg that Kamoshida had broken. “I mean, he does have to be stopped. We can’t let him ruin anyone else’s life like he did for you or me, yeah?”

Panther nodded, hugging herself uneasily. “I think so, too. For Shiho’s sake, and so nobody else ever feels like they have to make the kind of choice she did.”

“Then we’ll do it,” Joker proclaimed. “We’ll eliminate Kamoshida’s Shadow and change his heart.”

“Great! I knew I could count on all of you!” Mona cheered, hopping from foot to foot. “This is going to be your toughest fight yet, so make sure you’re fully prepared before sending the calling card. We may want to train a bit more first, and gather plenty of equipment.”

As the thieves headed out of the Palace for the day, making plans for the upcoming mission, Mona found there was a niggling feeling of something not quite adding up. They were supposed to be thieves stealing distorted desires. So why did this upcoming operation not actually involve stealing anything? Was there something he was missing? 

He was trying to think if there was a step he’d forgotten somewhere, when an overwhelming rush of certainty hit him. This was definitely the way to go, there could be no alternative. Who cared about the terminology? The only thing that mattered was the result. The phantom thieves had to kill Kamoshida’s Shadow.


End file.
